NAC Breda and Heerenveen will draw the curtain on round 18 of the 2024-25 Eredivisie season with a meeting at the Rat Verlegh Stadion on Sunday afternoon.
The home side were on the receiving end of a comprehensive 4-0 defeat in August's reverse meeting against the visitors and will now set out in search of revenge.
Match preview
Returning to the top flight for the first time since 2019, NAC Breda were billed as one of the early candidates for relegation, but it is safe to say they have defied expectations midway through the campaign.
Carl Hoefkens's men split their opening 10 matches into five wins and five defeats apiece to get off to a decent start, although Breda have managed just two victories from their seven Eredivisie encounters since.
Ending 2024 with back-to-back defeats against AZ Alkmaar and Go Ahead Eagles, Parel van het Zuiden will need to pick themselves up as soon as possible amid their battle for Conference League playoff qualification.
A 3-2 victory over Swiss outfit Servette in Tuesday's friendly encounter certainly comes as a welcome boost for Breda, who continued their habit of finding the back of the net at least once in a game since drawing consecutive blanks in early November.
However, with their offensive output surging, Sunday's hosts have also become more defensively porous, with two goals conceded in five of their last seven matches leading up to this weekend's encounter.
Heerenveen have enjoyed a mixed campaign to date; near perfect in front of their fans and utterly abysmal away from home, so the area of improvement going forward is as spelt out as it can be for them.
Only the current top two of PSV Eindhoven and Ajax have picked up more points in home matches than Robin van Persie's men, who have, however, managed fewer points on enemy territory than all but two sides in the division.
Just over two weeks after seeing their three-game winning run nipped in the bud in their final outing of 2024 against Almere City, De Superfriezen took on German sides Wehen and Paderborn in friendly matchups that ended in a 1-0 defeat and a 1-1 stalemate respectively.
One point shy of their next opponents in the Eredivisie table, Heerenveen will be seeking to complete a league double over Breda for the first time in almost 12 years and win straight editions of this fixture.
Sunday's visitors follow up this weekend's affair with a KNVB-Beker round-of-16 contest against lower league outfit Quick Boys on Thursday evening before entertaining the challenge of Ajax three days later.
Team News
Nineteen-year-old Cherrion Valerius is unavailable for Breda as he continues his spell on the sidelines with a knee injury that has kept him out of action since October.
Kacper Kostorz also misses out for the home side this weekend due to an ankle problem, although the Poland international is expected to return to the fray sooner rather than later.
Pawel Bochniewicz is set to sit out a sixth straight game with a knee problem, while Espen van Ee is ineligible to feature here after receiving his fifth yellow card against Almere.
As a result of Van Ee's absence, midfielder Amara Conde, could be reinstated to the visitors' lineup for what would be a seventh starting appearance of the season.
NAC Breda possible starting lineup:
Bielica; Van den Bergh, Kongolo, Mahmutovic; Sauer, Balard, Jensen, Lucassen; Leemans, Fernandes, Omarsson
Heerenveen possible starting lineup:
Van der Hart; Braude, Hopland, Kersten, Hall; Brouwers, Smans, Conde; Sebaoui, Rallis, Jahanbakhsh
We say: NAC Breda 1-0 Heerenveen
There is little to choose between the sides, and Sunday's contest could easily swing in either direction.
Playing in front of their fans, the onus is more on Breda to seize the initiative, so we fancy them to come out on top when all is said and done.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
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